


There's No Place Like It

by levitatethis



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Reality, Angst, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-17
Updated: 2010-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-09 12:51:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levitatethis/pseuds/levitatethis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A piece of Sylar's past is destroyed and the consequences are unexpected. Mohinder struggles with what to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's No Place Like It

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Mylar Fic June prompt 10 Word Challenge -- "Home"

"We can go back…make a detour…" Mohinder tentatively suggests.

Sylar's eyes leave the flickering television screen to acknowledge him. "We're on a tight schedule. Bennet just sent the name. We can't afford to—,"

"I'll handle Bennet," Mohinder promises, his questioning eyes countering Sylar's flat, chilly tone. "If you want to go back…"

"There is nothing to go back for," Sylar says calmly after a momentary pause. He picks his duffle bag up off the motel room floor and slides the strap over his shoulder. "I'll see you at the car."

Mohinder watches him walk away and then looks to the television. Placing his finger on the power button he looks at the news footage of a block fire in New York. Flipping through the channels this had been the fourth story so far this morning on the massive blaze.

The image of Grays and Sons engulfed in flames is a destruction only matched by the image of it completely gutted by early dawn.

Turning the television off, Mohinder looks at the open door.

He has no idea what to think.

 

************ ********** ********** ********** ************

 

Any expectation for business as usual, not out of apathetic callousness but uncertain worry, is set aside, over the course of the day.

Sylar, normally the one initiating different topical discussions that break the monotony of road travel, offers only one worded answers or conversation ending remarks that drift off listlessly into space.

Mohinder struggles to fill the unexpected void until his throat burns in resistance and the incessant sound of his own voice irritates him.

There is a spoken silence between them. Gripping the wheel, Mohinder can fee Sylar pulling further away until only his body in the passenger seat reminds Mohinder that he is not alone.

Not that it helps any. Mohinder wants to be prepared for their take down of Jason Smithson, a very dangerous man who can incinerate anything with the touch of his hand, and being unable to sort out protocol and back up plans is a life threatening risk he would prefer not to take.

Mohinder decides he does not care if Sylar has no regard for his own life, but it is unacceptable when he puts others in the line of fire. Frustration builds and Mohinder is ready to snap a rude comment just to get a reaction. Eyes briefly leave the road and settle on Sylar's form.

Mohinder opens his mouth but no words come out. Sylar gazes listlessly out the window.

Swallowing loudly, Mohinder focuses on his driving.

 

************ ********** ********** ********** **********   
**

When Mohinder wakes up the first thing he does is roll over to see if Sylar is still in the other bed. He can decipher the outline of Sylar's body, on his side facing the other way.

Rolling onto his back, Mohinder stares up at the ceiling and thinks about the night before. The second they had arrived in the room Sylar had dropped his bag on the floor and locked himself in the bathroom. Mohinder noted the abruptness but convinced himself that Sylar was cleaning up after hours in the car.

It was the two hour mark, with absolutely no sound from the other side of the door—no toilet flushing or shower running—and a desperate need to pee, that brought Mohinder to the door knocking loudly and asking, "Are you okay?

Nothing. At first.

The door then opened and Sylar shuffled out past him muttering an apologetic, "Sorry," as he made his way to the bed closest to the front door. Mohinder watched him and then took suspicious steps into the bathroom, closing the door behind him, and ran investigative eyes around in the hopes of something jumping out that would make some inkling of sense out of uncertainty.

Yet everything looked untouched. He wondered what Sylar had been doing in there and tried to beat back the concern bubbling up as no more than an overreaction.

When he finally left the bathroom, Sylar was already asleep, seeming—

Very much like he is now.

Mohinder sits up and throws his legs over the right side of the bed to rest on the worn carpeted floor and he watches Sylar's form intently. Trying to stay focused Mohinder stands up and heads to the bathroom. Once he is showered and half ready to get the day started his worry is re-ignited as he finds Sylar still in bed, unmoved.

Quickly Mohinder gets dressed, his eyes on Sylar the entire time unsure of how to get through to him. When he walks over to the side of Sylar's bed he is surprised to see that his eyes are open.

"Sylar?…Sylar?"

Mohinder sighs and slides his left hand over top his combed down wet hair while he considers what to do. "I'm going to double check our directions at the front desk. When I get back we really need to get going, okay?" he firmly says in the hopes that his work-like orders will break Sylar out of his daze.

Mohinder's desire to leave the room is as much to check the map as to have a meditative moment in the fresh air to think clearly. _Everything will be fine_, he repeats in his mind, _everything will be fi_ne.

It is the mantra of the hopeless and when he returns to the room it is not enough.

Sylar is still in bed and when Mohinder kneels next to him he notices that Sylar's eyes are unfocused and looking straight through him.

"Sylar," Mohinder says insistently.

Eyes straight through him.

Panic races from zero to one hundred and eighty.

 

************ ********** ********** ********** ************

 

"Peter, please!" Mohinder pleads into the phone.

A split second later Peter is standing next to him, phone in hand. He snaps it shut and asks Mohinder, "Where is—,"

Spotting the still figure on the bed over Mohinder's shoulder, Peter rushes past him and crouches down, feeling Sylar's forehead.

Mohinder spins around and nervous steps carry him as far as the foot of the bed before refusing to take him any further. Fidgeting and pacing on the spot, Mohinder scratches a hand through his hair and watches Peter work.

"How long has he been like his?" Peter asks while keeping his eyes focused on Sylar.

"He's been acting strange for a few days—ever since the news about the fire," Mohinder rushes to explain.

Peter gives him a quizzical look and Mohinder continues, "Grays and Sons—it was a family shop passed down to him from his father. He worked there until…you know."

Peter gazes back at Sylar and feels his steady pulse.

"He's been like _this _since last night," Mohinder shares while Peter checks his eyes.

"Can you look inside?" Mohinder asks and takes a small step forward.

"Yes," Peter says.

Mohinder cannot see it but he still knows when Peter has entered Sylar's mind. Even with Sylar's eyes unfocused Peter gazes deep inside and suddenly Mohinder feels as if he no longer exists in the room.

A minute, dragging out like an unending hour, passes and Peter stands up.

"What?" Mohinder asks and races to his side.

"I can't…I don't know," Peter worriedly admits. "It's nothing coherent, instead it's a rapid flow of images: an apartment, snow-globes, clocks, a store, miniature instruments, watches—lots of watches, a woman with a distant look, a serious man—older…I can't really make sense of any of it."

Mohinder breaks his concerned eyes away from Peter to look at Sylar. Thinking for a moment he wonders aloud, "So he's still in there somewhere?"

"Yep."

"What do I…what do we do?" Mohinder asks.

"Hang in here, I'm going to get help," Peter states but as he moves past Mohinder he clasps a firm hand on his shoulder. "I don't mean this to sound as cold as it does…"

"I know," Mohinder answers softly, keeping his focus on Sylar. "The timing is terrible."

"I hate to admit it, but we really need him," Peter confesses quietly.

A deafening silence swallows them.

"You should try talking to him Mohinder," Peter suggests.

A confused look settles on Mohinder's face and Peter says, "Maybe something will click."

Then there are two.

 

************ ********** ********** *********** ************

 

Pulling a chair up next to Sylar, Mohinder sits down and leans forward.

"Sylar," he begins cautiously, far too self-aware, "If you can hear me, please try and fight through this. We need you…you heard Peter…just…you've always been good at putting up a fight, why should this be any different?"

He sits back in the chair and wonders how truthful words can feel so hollow.

 

************ ********** ********** ********** ************

 

He paces the room and checks his watch every few seconds. The walls close in the stifling air and he feels _that thought_ trying to claw its way out. He defies its persistency but cannot ignore it.

Crossing the floor he makes his way to Sylar's side and leans over him.

"I know that even though you walked away from the shop, from that life…I know that as much as it frustrated you, you never belittled it," Mohinder says in a hushed but strict tone. "I know the shop is your last connection to that life, something worthy in it and now…you think you have nothing."

Dejectedly, Mohinder walks over to his own bed and sits down, putting his back to Sylar, facing a blank wall. Hunched over, he hangs his head resting it in hands that can barely hold it up. He feels normally steadfast resolve swiftly leaving his body.

"You can't leave," he whispers to the stagnant space around him. "I can't do this without you. You're the only one I can…"

Mohinder breathes deeply. Closing his eyes he imagines this is all a terrible nightmare and that they are still in New York awaiting Bennet's latest batch of information. Slowly Mohinder opens his eyes.

He is staring at a blank wall.

 

************ ********** ********** ********** ************

 

Crouching down next to the bed Mohinder uses his right hand to brush Sylar's hair back off his face and rests it on his cheek.

"Gabriel…"

The name, grasped at by desperation, ushers forward.

"Gabriel…"

Mohinder wonders if a name can be a secret key.

"Please…"

There is no magic in the word.

 

************ ********** ********** ********** ************

 

Slumped in the corner of the room by the front door, Mohinder is propped up by the walls with his down-turned eyes looking aimlessly at his empty hands while Sylar lies ten feet away, stuck in his own trance-like state.

Mohinder feels completely helpless as debilitating thoughts peel him apart. _Peter's not coming back. Sylar's gone._ He can do nothing but accept it.

His eyes glide across the dirty carpet to the bed and Sylar's immobile form. One final burst of adrenalin sparks a last ditch effort and Mohinder rapidly crawls across the floor, on all fours, to Sylar's side.

Kneeling next to him, Mohinder uses his right hand to cup Sylar's left cheek again. Hesitating, he shifts slightly and drops that hand to Sylar's left arm that is curled up in front of his body.

Mohinder stretches it out and places Sylar's hand, palm down, against his heart, which he is certain Sylar can feel pounding.

"You hold on to this," Mohinder insists with an unexpected catch in this throat that swallows the tail end of the words. He pretends that Sylar's eyes somehow see him and he stumbles through the choking sob that threatens to derail the sentiments that have waited too long.

With a fiery determination he demands, "You anchor yourself to this."

Mohinder uses his left hand to stop the frustrated and hopeless tears that are forming from wetting his face. Once under control he rests that hand against his forehead, keeping his eyes closed and feeling Sylar's hand pressed to his chest.

Letting go of Sylar he settles back on his legs bent beneath him and stares dejectedly at empty eyes.

He rolls back on his heels and stands up. Beginning to move towards his own bed he changes course and lies down on Sylar's bed, curled up on his right side facing Sylar's back. He watches him until exhaustion wins out and grants him mercy.

 

************ ********** ********** ********** ************

 

Mohinder wakes up the next morning facing the other way. Turning around quickly he sees that Sylar is gone and he reaches out to feel the coldness of where Sylar had been the night before. Mohinder bolts upright with his eyes scanning the empty room, panicked that Sylar slipped out in the middle of the night and is now gone. Forever.

Mohinder gets off the bed; moving back and forth to pick up his bag, look in the bathroom, pace the room (noticing that Sylar's duffle bag is still there) and dial Peter.

His eyes shoot up as the front door opens. Sylar steps in with two drinks in hand and kicks the door closed behind him. His eyes meet Mohinder's and a momentary timidity tiptoes between them as Mohinder turns his phone off.

"I figured we're too behind schedule for a proper breakfast so tea will have to suffice," Sylar says sounding a little too ignorant of the past few days.

Shocked, Mohinder moves forward and answers, "Ah yes, that's a good idea." Reaching for the tea Sylar is holding out to him Mohinder asks, "Are you…feeling better?" unsure of the correct words at a time like this.

Sylar holds Mohinder's gaze steadily. "Yes," he replies softly and moves to pick up his bag. "Let's go," he adds with a quick glance at a dumbfounded Mohinder who feels stuck to the spot and overcome with relief.

 

************ ********** ********** ********** ************

 

Mohinder drives the endless highway while Sylar fiddles with the radio. They have not discussed what happened and despite having a thousand questions Mohinder does not want to press too hard so fast.

Glancing away from the road he sees Sylar smile as some golden oldies tune fills up the car. Leaning back, Sylar taps his fingers on the window ledge of the passenger door then turns his eyes to rest on Mohinder.

Mohinder's own eyes go back to the road in amazement at how normal everything feels. But it is different than what it was before. Now there is something more tangible in the air.

Another quick look across the seats and Mohinder sees Sylar watching him with a thoughtful expression.

"What's on your mind?" Mohinder asks, looking back to the road and then again at Sylar expectantly.

Sylar lets a shared moment pass before redirecting his gaze out the passenger window. "Home," he says with a small knowing smile on his face. 

**Author's Note:**

> **Nominated for Best Mohinder/Sylar (G-PG13)**


End file.
